It is well known that paved surfaces, such as roadways, sidewalks, driveways, tennis courts and the like, can develop cracks, which necessitate repair. These cracks often develop over time, but can also appear in new paved surfaces. Asphalt surfaces in particular are susceptible to developing cracks in regions that have extreme weather conditions or that have large temperature fluctuations. It is desirable to repair these cracks to preserve the longevity of the entire asphalt surface as well as to prevent damage or injury to those using the surface.
One way to eliminate cracks from paved surfaces is to tear it up and replace the entire surface. This process is extremely expensive. It is also not practical to replace the entire surface, which has many more years of useful life, because cracks have formed in a small portion of the surface.
Instead of ripping up an entire paved surface, various less expensive methods have been employed to repair cracks that may develop in these surfaces. One known process is to fill the cracks with an asphalt sealer. While this often serves to fill the cracks at least temporarily, the utilization of current asphalt sealers to repair cracks suffers from some significant disadvantages. Initially, current asphalt sealers are susceptible to melting when subjected to high temperatures, which results in the sealer flowing away from a crack filling position. For example, when the asphalt sealer heats up, it becomes softer and can be squeezed, such as by a vehicle passing thereover, so that it no longer properly fills the crack. Additionally, because of their composition, current sealers can be slippery, which is undesirable. As existing asphalt sealers have very limited durability when serving to fill cracks, if the sealer no longer serves to fill the crack, additional crack repair services are required. Accordingly, existing crack repair methods and systems are costly, both in terms of material and labor.
In some instances where the crack is deep enough, a grout material, such as a mortar or cement, is used to assist in filling these cracks. In these instances, the grout material is placed in the crack and allowed to harden. Thereafter, the asphalt sealer is placed in the crack over top of the grout material to completely fill the crack and level out the paved surface. This can also create durability issues in that existing grout fillers that are used in crack repair applications often have significant shrinkage issues. Thus, while an asphalt sealer used to help fill a crack may initially be level with the surface being repaired, when the grout material shrinks, the asphalt sealer will drop into the crack as the level of the grout material recedes. The asphalt sealer thus is no longer flush with the upper paved surface and often falls into the crack itself.
In an effort to address some of these deficiencies, aggregates such as sand or limestone, were added to the asphalt sealer to provide it with more substance. However, these efforts were unsuccessful as these aggregates would release from the sealer, such as when contacted, and they would therefore eventually fail. Thus, while they provided some increased durability, they ultimately suffer from the same disadvantages as asphalt sealers without an aggregate.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide an improved asphalt sealer for paved surfaces that overcomes these disadvantages. It would also be advantageous to provide an improved crack repair system that overcomes the failings with current systems.